Denver Seminary

14 SPRING 2016 Mom, I'm a Muslim. I told the story for years with pain and regret. Remorse that almost trapped me in an unyielding state of self-condemnation and guilt. I'm a bad mother. I'm a bad Christian. I'm worth nothing to the kingdom of God, so I should stop trying to be worth anything, in fact, to anyone. But God. Remember those words? They show up in the Bible in the most unlikely places. With rain-soaked Noah (Gen. 8:1). With life-exasperated Jacob (Gen. 31:42). With sibling- challenged Joseph (Gen. 50:20). Standing before his starving, cheating, double-dealing brothers, Joseph invoked the two most grace-soaked words of the Bible: "You intended to harm me, but God …" (italics mine). I could regret to a fault. Instead, by grace, I eat pie. The apostle Paul, writing to that contentious, young church in Rome, summarized it this way: "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8, italics mine). So in my relationship with my daughter, I had to extend grace to her first. Gritting my teeth sometimes—as she would say now, laughing—I stopped battling over religion and granted her the grace of trusting God with the end of our story. Humbling, indeed, is any family's grace journey. Growth in grace, said evangelist Arthur W. Pink, "is growth downward. It is the forming of a lower estimate of ourselves. It is a deepening realization of our nothingness. It is a heartfelt recognition that we are not worthy of the least of God's mercies." 2 If that is true, and it is, I can decide to cut my daughter some gracious slack. She loathes, for example, questions about Islamic terrorism, hating the need to defend what she insists isn't her true faith. I can be desperate, in contrast, to push her on it—hoping in the ornery places of my heart to score a point for Christ and against her choice of Islam. But God. Grace rises to become the best gift possible to offer a loved one, trusting God with the final say, especially when the two of you don't see eye to eye. I learned that the hard way. Beating myself up for failing, I received from the Lord not condemnation, but an assuring and welcome break. "Yes, you are a good mother." "Yes, you are a good Christian." "Yes, you are worth much to my kingdom, and to this world, no matter what you or your daughter did or didn't do. So stop sorrowing and get to work. I need you in the vineyard." This is grace undeserved, as our theologians say. Stunned by this grace, therefore, I extend it to my daughter. I no longer fight with her. We make our Thanksgiving pies on this Nashville day and never argue once. Instead, I luxuriate in my daughter's kitchen love, watching this daughter I raised cook and stir and busy herself in that way that looks like me—even if, when we pray, we're not yet on the same bright path. I could berate myself all day, moping around the kitchen, feeling sorrowful about our interfaith dilemma. Instead, by choice, I let my daughter love me, my grandchildren spoil me, my husband joke with me, and my God assure me. In that way, I can take grace one step deeper. I extend it to myself. Scottish preacher Alexander Whyte said it like this: "Grace has only one direction that it can take. Grace always flows down." 3 So on my knees, praying with hope, I now accept God's love on purpose. This lets me walk, live, and serve with joy, without looking back. Do I regret my motherly mistakes? Decry my parental errors? I could regret to a fault. Instead, by grace, I eat pie. "Taste and see," said the psalmist, "that the Lord is good" (Ps. 34:8). He always is. Patricia Raybon TRUSTEE Patricia Raybon serves on the Board of Trustees for Denver Seminary. She is an award- winning author of several books, including Undivided: A Muslim Daughter, Her Christian Mother, Their Path to Peace; My First White Friend: Confessions on Race, Love, and Forgiveness; and I Told the Mountain to Move: Learning to Pray So Things Change. Patricia and her husband, Dan, live near Denver, Colorado and have two grown daughters and five grandchildren. 2 Arthur Walkington Pink, Spiritual Growth: Growth in Grace, or Christian Progress (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1971). 3 Alexander Whyte D.D., The Apostle Paul. (London: Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier, 1903), 211. Ridofranz/iStock

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